Need help with my laptops dvd drive.

[xbox360guy]

I have an acer aspire 7720Z, and it's been running fine since i bought it from amazon about 7 months back. A few days ago, my disk drive (as in cd/dvd writer etc) disappeared from my computer. (not literally, in the technical computery "my computer"). When i put cds or dvds in i can't do anything with them, the computer doesn't recognize the drive therefor it does not recognize the disk.

now, i have been using poweriso recently (using "fake" drives to mount images and stuff) do you think that could be the problem? it's really annoying because i can't burn anything or use any dvds/cds.

what should i do?

has this happened to you before?

any help will be appreciated.

[wolf]

if i were you i'd back up all important files and then do a full system restore

[moobsuk]

Before you panic and do a system restore, go check in the bios, make sure that it is set to detect all drives, I had this yesterday on a PC at work

[xbox360guy]

and how would i do this? (im running vista)

[grabrail]

Have you checked your event logs for any issues?

Have you checked in device manager if the drive shows in there?

[xbox360guy]

oh ye, i checked device manager and it's not there. (used to be)